Birmingham-based Bayer Properties has taken over the management and leasing of Bridge Street Town Centre. (Sarah Cole/scole@al.com)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - A new management and leasing team has been brought in to oversee Bridge Street Town Centre.

Bridge Street's new owners recently hired Bayer Properties to replace O&S Holdings, which developed and had managed the outdoor shopping center since its November 2007 opening.

Based in Birmingham, Bayer Properties owns and/or operates more than 12 million square feet of high-end retail and office space including The Summit in Birmingham, Cahaba Village in Mountain Brook and The Shoppes at EastChase in Montgomery.

The 600,000-square-foot shopping center boasts more than 70 specialty shops and restaurants, including H&M, Apple, Sephora and PF Changs, as well as one of the highest-grossing Monaco Pictures in the Southeast and the 210-room Westin Hotel. Construction is expected to start this spring on a new $20 million Belk that the company says will be its "flagship" store for North Alabama. Part of Bridge Street's manmade lake is being filled in to make room for the Belk, plus another 50,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space.

The management change from O&S Holdings to Bayer occurred March 21, according to a news release.

Bayer is already heavily promoting Bridge Street on its website, calling it "the premier mixed-use regional fashion center in northern Alabama" and "the destination of choice for consumers to shop, dine, stay and play." The website also points out that Huntsville has the nation's highest concentration of engineering degrees.